Home > Consumer Reviews > Smart Strip LCG3 Energy Saving Power Strip with Autoswitching Technology
Smart Strip LCG3 Energy Saving Power Strip with Autoswitching Technology
See it at Amazon.com for $23.00Average Customer Rating
(4.5 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
Most Helpful First | Newest First | + ShareGreat money saving device
(5 out of 5) by Marvin A. Conn on Sep 12, 2008 (Orange Park, FLorida USA)Saves my PC from using 50watts all of the time. Purchased two of them, both work great.
Swanky
(5 out of 5) by Matthew D. Stehlin on Aug 26, 2008This power strip is a little pricy, but it's way cool.
Excellent way to save the environment, and help save you money!
Excellent way to save the environment, and help save you money!
Let's see
(4 out of 5) by Creative Concepts, LLC on Jul 14, 2008Does what it says on the box. Just waiting to see the $avings on my Electric bill until then I'll give it a few months before my next review.
Love this product!
(5 out of 5) by D. Levesque on Nov 23, 2007 (massachusetts)I bought this a while back. By replacing my light bulbs to energy saving and using this smart strip I have saved 50.+ off my electric bill!
Highly recommend this product!
Highly recommend this product!
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Really wanted to like it
(1 out of 5) by J. E. Vandergriff on Sep 10, 2009There's a lot of companies that have jumped on the "green," power conserving, surge protector bandwagon. It's a neat idea that needs further refinement. I'm really sorry it didn't work as correspondence with the company has been nice and polite.
The Smart Strip will probably work fine with A/V equipment, but I don't have any confidence it will work as intended with my iMac* and am returning it.
There were two main issues.
Calibration - I've read the instructions, understand the various outlets' roles and behaviors, and the calibration process. I could not calibrate it to work as intended and came to the conclusion, I would never achieve a perfect setting, just compromise at best.
Power dip after start up - When I would wake the iMac from sleep mode, there would be a power dip a few seconds later. I can't imagine this is good for the peripheral devices. I should have probably taken the time to determine whether this is isolated to the computer being the master device or if it does this with any electrical device in the control outlet.
After fiddling with the calibration, trying to achieve a perfect setting that would work for on/off and sleep mode, my iMac locked up during start up. Just a black screen and power light. It would not reboot by the standard depressing the power button until it restarts routine. I had to shut off my computer by turning off the Smart Strip.
There is supposedly a third generation that works better, but there are no identifiers on the actually product to determine what generation I had. The manual stated that it works with "All computers." After experiencing my computer lock up, I really don't want to risk trying it again.
One other concern was the lack of an equipment protection policy, common with many surge protectors. The warranty only covers the product. The produced a lot of doubt.
As for my rating, construction seems on par with other surge protectors in this price range and I would give it three stars. But the lack of an equipment protection policy drops it below the competition. The computer lock up and the power dips made it undesirable for powering my specific computer needs.
In fairness, it doesn't look like any of the competing products in this price range work any better. For the time being, I would rather manually turn the power on or off than delegate the decision making to the Smart Strip. Long term, I really do hope they develop one that works correctly with computers' built in power conservation systems. Hopefully, it just a matter of time.
*There seems to be some variants, unavailable on amazon, that trigger off the USB signal. This make more sense for a computer scenario, as long as the power dips don't occur on start up.
The Smart Strip will probably work fine with A/V equipment, but I don't have any confidence it will work as intended with my iMac* and am returning it.
There were two main issues.
Calibration - I've read the instructions, understand the various outlets' roles and behaviors, and the calibration process. I could not calibrate it to work as intended and came to the conclusion, I would never achieve a perfect setting, just compromise at best.
Power dip after start up - When I would wake the iMac from sleep mode, there would be a power dip a few seconds later. I can't imagine this is good for the peripheral devices. I should have probably taken the time to determine whether this is isolated to the computer being the master device or if it does this with any electrical device in the control outlet.
After fiddling with the calibration, trying to achieve a perfect setting that would work for on/off and sleep mode, my iMac locked up during start up. Just a black screen and power light. It would not reboot by the standard depressing the power button until it restarts routine. I had to shut off my computer by turning off the Smart Strip.
There is supposedly a third generation that works better, but there are no identifiers on the actually product to determine what generation I had. The manual stated that it works with "All computers." After experiencing my computer lock up, I really don't want to risk trying it again.
One other concern was the lack of an equipment protection policy, common with many surge protectors. The warranty only covers the product. The produced a lot of doubt.
As for my rating, construction seems on par with other surge protectors in this price range and I would give it three stars. But the lack of an equipment protection policy drops it below the competition. The computer lock up and the power dips made it undesirable for powering my specific computer needs.
In fairness, it doesn't look like any of the competing products in this price range work any better. For the time being, I would rather manually turn the power on or off than delegate the decision making to the Smart Strip. Long term, I really do hope they develop one that works correctly with computers' built in power conservation systems. Hopefully, it just a matter of time.
*There seems to be some variants, unavailable on amazon, that trigger off the USB signal. This make more sense for a computer scenario, as long as the power dips don't occur on start up.